. >>> president obama's trying to balance the budget right now. his sights are on a smaller deal in order to head off automatic spending cuts that kick in march 1. cbs reporter danielle nottingham explains from washington. >> reporter: president obama is calling on congress to stop massive automatic across-the- board spending cuts with a short-term fix. >> our economy right now is headed in the right direction, and it will stay that way as long as there aren't any more self-inflicted wounds coming out of washington. >> reporter: last year congress and the president signed off on the automatic cuts to force themselves to deal with the nation's skyrocketing debt. the original deadline was january 1st. and when they couldn't reach a larger budget deal then, they postponed it to march 1st. the white house wants another short-term fix to head off a hit to the fragile economy and give lawmakers more time to work out a 10-year plan. >> we should give them the chance to come up with this budget instead of making indiscriminate cuts now that will cost us j